Tuesday, December 12, 2006

The Other Player On The Boardwalk To Dish It Out At The New Child’s Restaurant

Joe Sitt and his Thor Equities will be joined on the boardwalk by Charles Bendit and his Taconic Investment Partners. Having done recent business together they will be doing further business side by side in the New Coney. The only thing between them will be the Cyclone Stadium. Taconic, a real estate investment firm with properties across the country, recently acquired two important parcels west of the stadium: the lot next the park and the Child’s Restaurant building.

As reported by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

Taconic signed a 49-year lease for the Child’s two-story building with an open-air mezzanine in August, with the option to extend the lease or purchase the property if the landlord decides to sell. That same month, the company acquired from the City Investment Fund, at no recorded cost, the 168,000-square-foot lot across the street, where the Washington Bathhouse once stood.

“We are developing our plan for Child’s right now,” said Bendit, co-founder of Taconic. “I think ultimately, we’d like to restore it to what it once was, which was a food-type enterprise,” with possibilities including a combination of a restaurant, market and catering service. “I think [plans for the lot] are really going to be predicated on what the EDC and the city come up with.” Bendit added that he didn’t want to go into specifics about Taconic’s wishes for the site before the city made its final zoning determinations. But according to Recchia, housing is definitely on the table.

The Fund bought the lot in June for $90 million from Thor Equities — $77 million more than Thor had paid for the property only a year earlier. The move has been criticized by some locals as a sign that Thor CEO Joseph Sitt also intends to flip the 13 acres he’s been buying up between KeySpan Park and the New York Aquarium.

Founded in 1997, Taconic Investment Partners is a fully integrated real estate investment company that acquires office and multifamily properties. The firm also manages its own properties and provides asset and property management, leasing and financial reporting services.